ArcGIS 10 Improves Productivity and Makes GIS Available Everywhere

Highlights

Python scripting for automating common tasks and analyses is included in ArcGIS 10.

ArcGIS 10 will transform the way people use and apply GIS. This release will help users be more productive with their work and provide them with more powerful spatial analysis capabilities while significantly improving performance. Users will also be able to leverage GIS everywhere: via Web-extended desktops, Web-hosted applications, and cloud GIS.

Perform GIS Work Faster

ArcGIS 10 includes new 3D editing, visualization, and analysis capabilities to help model and understand the third dimension of your data.

ArcGIS 10 dramatically improves the user experience and integrates productivity tools to support the workflows of GIS professionals. This release makes map creation and production much easier and provides best practices templates to help users get started quickly. At ArcGIS 10, users can search by keywords or data types to find data and maps. They can also use the search function to quickly and easily find symbols to use in their maps and tools for analysis.

Editing in ArcGIS 10 is streamlined; this release introduces sketch-based desktop and Web editing, which means that users can choose from a customizable on-screen palette of features in desktop and Web clients. In addition to making users more efficient, this new editing experience allows the expansion of volunteered geographic information or user-generated content on the Web.

Faster performance at ArcGIS 10 is the result of averaging local graphics cards on desktops and improved cache generation and management, as well as optimized Web graphics. These caching and Web graphic improvements translate into more responsive drawing performance, including smooth, continuous panning of data.

Powerful Spatial Analysis

ArcGIS has always been the premier software for spatial analysis, and with this release, Esri continues to advance geographic science with new tools. ArcGIS 10 includes Python scripting for automating common tasks and analyses. Using Python, the capabilities of ArcGIS can be combined with other scientific programming to create powerful solutions. Among the new analyses offered in ArcGIS 10 is location-allocation, which helps users understand how their facilities placements in a given network impact their ability to serve their customers.

The upcoming release also introduces the notion of time in both visualization and analysis. ArcGIS 10 lets users create, manage, and visualize time-aware data. Users can display and animate temporal datasets, as well as publish and query temporal map services. The ability to see data over time opens opportunities for more in-depth analysis.

With ArcGIS 10, it is much easier and faster to perform 3D visualization. In fact, at this release, ArcGIS becomes a full 3D GIS, offering 3D data models, editing, analysis, and visualization. As a result, users can do virtually everything they do in a 2D environment in a 3D environment.

Improved Imagery Use and Management

ArcGIS 10 enables better use and management of imagery on the desktop and also on the server. This release supports massive dynamic mosaics, resulting in fast performance. On-the-fly processing that was previously supported on ArcGIS Server is now also supported in ArcGIS Desktop. Moreover, the imagery management tools have been collected into one place to facilitate access to commonly used tools.

New Ways to Share

ArcGIS 10 offers tight integration with ArcGIS Online search and share capabilities and makes it easy to create and distribute projects that may include data, layers, maps, tools, scenes, globes, diagrams, and add-ins. It is also easy to discover and organize geographic data throughout the enterprise via the new Search service in ArcGIS Server.

GIS in the Field

At ArcGIS 10, ArcGIS Mobile has a customizable, out-of-the-box application that allows users to extend mobile projects to in-vehicle and tablet-based PCs. Esri is extending this concept to the iPhone platform. Customers will be able to access a mapping application directly from the Apple iTunes App Store. Esri is also providing a software development kit so organizations can build their own focused iPhone applications.

Availability and More Information

ArcGIS 10 is expected to ship during the second quarter of 2010. Find the latest information on ArcGIS 10, including podcasts and videos, at www.esri.com/whatscoming.